Fields at athletic facilities are often used for a variety of different sports and events. For example, football fields are often also used as soccer fields. To temporarily transition any field into a soccer field, movable soccer goals are placed on the field. Such movable soccer goals, however, are often prone to tip over, sometimes causing injury to players or others. This may be especially true when young children are playing on the field, as young children may be more likely to climb on, hang on, jump on, bump, or otherwise attempt to disturb the soccer goal. Vandals may also move or steal the movable soccer goals. Furthermore, it takes significant time and effort for facilities personnel to properly align a movable soccer goal on a field relative to the sidelines and the other soccer goal. These problems are not only true for soccer goals, but also pertain to other types of goals and athletic equipment, such as field hockey goals, lacrosse goals, backstops, safety nets, and the like.
Accordingly, there is a long-felt but unmet need to provide a system that enables facility personnel to quickly and easily anchor a movable soccer goal on a field, such as a football field. Previous attempts at securing movable goals involve piercing or puncturing the surface of the playing field with a stake or screw-type device. These devices, however, can cause damage to a playing field when the field consists of natural turf, and these devices cannot be used at all on artificial playing surfaces.